Day 37. +7.7. Playing with fire.

Two trades today. First trade was different than I normally take and the second was a standard trade but I played it a bit different.

For the first trade, I knew that it had less of a chance of hitting but also a very nice payoff if it did. So instead of waiting for the breakout I went for the bounce off the resistance. However, I knew that if I let this go past even 3pips negative I would be in a world of trouble. Because at that point it would have broken past the high it kept bouncing off. And should it break that high I felt it would be a runaway train and give me horrible slippage on my exit producing a possible 10+pip loss. So I entered and the price bounced back just slightly. To be safe I exited. A few minutes later though, the price shot down. So I got shook out and missed that payoff I wanted. I was a little frustrated but then reminded myself it was the correct play because if it would have gone the other way and not exited so early I would have been fucked.

Second trade fell in line with a previous observation. After price moved down and ranged it moved as if it wanted to go down some more so I put in a pending. Then it ran up and I canceled my pending. At that moment I thought to myself, "Is this gonna be like the other day where it runs up a bit then shoots down?" Sure enough it did. Trade hit and stalled and range around 55. Normally I would exit but price was still acting like it wanted to move down so I held. I wondered if I'd regret it, should it bounce back up to produce a loser. But I felt it was more likely to go down so continued holding. Then boom, went down, stalled a bit and seemed like it was a bit far from the mean so I exited with a little over 10pip win. Nice.

And now my weekend begins. Gonna take my mountain bike out tomorrow morning, then going fishing on Sunday morning with a couple buddies. Then having a bbq. Gonna be a great weekend! See everyone Monday!

Day 36. + 4.5. Easy like Sunday morning.

I had just sat down and got done marking my charts when I spotted exactly what I look for. So put in a pending and a few minutes later it hit. Stalled for a bit but didn't reverse hard and I felt it would go down so held. Went down a couple pips but felt it would go a but more so held still. After 4.5 it stalled too much for my liking so I exited with a quick win.

I was going to trade some more since there a bunch of news releases today, but seeing as how this week has been up and down I've decided to take an easy win and enjoy the morning. Rejuvenate the yin in my yang. I have a loose guideline of going for only 3pips daily anyway, so today's win was perfecto radio #1.

Day 35. +1.3 Slooooooow.

Today was no movement day. Felt like it was the Asian session. Also felt weird emotionally as well. Once price entered the doldrums I was down a couple pips. Normally I feel like there will be plenty of opportunities to make pips up and make more but not this time. As I waited there I felt like it was going to be losing day. Which I've had before, everyone does. But it felt weird "knowing" that even though there was a lot of time left in the session I was gonna be stuck. Buuut, I held out hope that something would happen and I could catch it at the right time. Then it did happen and I missed it! hah. I was considering getting in right before it took off and missed the nice move up. Then it stalled and I got in. Made a couple pips but I felt it would go more so held on only to have it start reversing. And seeing as how we were near a recent top I decided to exit, only to have price go up a bit more as I initially thought. hah. So back and forth back and forth. In the end though I pulled it through and came out positive.

Day 34. +6.6. Excuse me, is this elevator going up?

7 trades today. 2 losers, 5 winners. Remembering what I wrote yesterday, I made to sure to keep my losses small. Which was much easier to deal with. Of course! As price rose upward I wondered if it would break the previous high. If so I felt it would explode. So positioned myself along the way taking small bites out of crime. During my session it never made it past the high but I got a nice amount of pips anyway.

Day 33. +3.5. Made positive pips but bad trading.

The toughest day I've had so far due to some bad trading decisions. Felt mentally and emotionally drained after this session.

Poor decisions:

1) I didn't completely feel where price was going on the first trade. Logically, it looked like it was going up. But I didn't completely "feel" it. I didn't KNOW it was going up. I just thought it would. This is a no-no. I should only enter trades when I completely feel the set up. 

2) I allowed myself to take full stops too easily. This is unacceptable. There are certain conditions that must be met to take a full stop and they were not met today. I should have taken small losses, 1-3 pips at most. This would have been easier to overcome thus I would A) Have had a bigger winning day and B) Would have been easier Mentally/emotionally.

3) When breaking out of the range, I set my pending too close. Thus, the trade was triggered and I took a loss. That was stupid.

4) My second to last trade was almost pure retardation. At one point it was in profit for 13.8 pips. But I held on thinking it would go lower. And while I was correct, as seen in the last trade, it still bounced back hard and I ended exiting with only around a 4.5 pip gain! I should not have let it bounce back that far and normally I wouldn't but my emotions (greed) got the best of me. The only saving grace for this trade is that I didn't let it become a loser. Not that price went back up far enough to make it a big loser, but I didn't know that at the time and decided I'd get at xx spot, which I did. Still, I left a lot of pips on the table.

I did observe something interesting though. When I strongly felt that price was going to go down further after 7:30, it did BUT it first made a quick run up before going down hard. Like someone backing up to get enough space to run at and break through a door. This same thing happened the other day when I felt very strongly about price going a certain way while ranging. It's too early to tell if this something to be expected but I will keep my eye on it in the future.

Day 32. +4.9. Back in the game

Back to trading. Last night I felt compelled to get some sleep to trade in the morning. Of course I'm still dealing with the feelings of the breakup since it was just Saturday, but my head feels clear to trade and my emotions are in check. Fo shizzle my nizzle. I was excited to start trading and ended up waking up at 3am and couldn't get back to sleep. So started my trading earlier than usual.

First trade was late and completely my fault. I made a gain of 2.3 pips but it would have been at least another pip or two if I got in on time. I had put in a pending sell but canceled it soon after thinking that I could get a better entry with market. I have specific places I like to enter but those places depend on what price is doing. Most times I know where that place will be and can put in a pending at certain price. But other times, I can't tell yet the exact price though I do know very close to where it should be. This was one of those times. So I felt I could better control it with a Market order. However, no matter how fast you are you'll never get as good a price with a Market as with a Stop. So lesson learned, no more markets. Get in on time or don't get in. No late entries.

Price then ranged for a while but seemed like it wanted to go down so put in a pending sell. I strongly felt it was going down so left the pending for much longer than I usually do. Around 4:48 price made a run for the border, was promptly caught by the border patrol and thrown back in to Mexico. At this point it seemed that price was determined to make it across, which didn't make too much sense based on it's previous behavior but I went with it and realized I was wrong as it strongly moved downward. So I put my pending sell back in and it hit. Price then moved really strange. First time I've seen it act like this. Hard to describe but it I was like it had no idea what it wanted to do. I felt it would go down so I held a bit and it stalled. I though about holding longer for the pop but seeing as how price was acting so weird I just got out with a couple pips profit.

Anyway, good to be back, again. hah. Looking forward to tomorrow and beyond!

Or Today.

Still wasn't ready. Tomorrow? Maybe. We'll see.